Instigation
by Archaeobee
Summary: Oneshot. Elizabeth alone can make sense of what she feels for Jack Sparrow, which she finally does one night when she senses her life falling out from under her. JE WE, Prequel to Veracity.


**Author's Note:** This is a prequel to my fic, 'Veracity', which can be found in my profile. You don't have to read it for this one to make sense.

_Pirates of the Caribbean_ belongs to the Walt Disney Company.

۞

_**Instigation**_

_By Dream Descends_

۞

"You didn't tell him about the curse."

She hadn't meant it as an accusation—not really. It was more a question. She wanted to know why he hadn't told the entire truth—not that honesty was a recognized trait among pirates.

But she had believed this pirate was, for the most part, a good man. Inwardly, she knew all she needed was reassurance that Jack wasn't sending innocent men to their death for his own selfish reasons. Why she needed it, she couldn't say. But for some reason, she couldn't look at him as she awaited his response.

The sea rocked the _Dauntless_ back and forth calmingly, and she inhaled the salty breeze with a faint smile playing across her lips.

"I noticed, neither did you," Jack said lightly. "For the same reason, I imagine."

A scalding guilt overcame her, but she managed to control it by biting down hard on her tongue—hard enough to draw blood.

Will _did_ matter to Jack, and Elizabeth had the feeling that it was for more than just commercial reasons.

"He wouldn't have risked it," she agreed bitterly.

"Could've gotten him drunk." She gave Jack a dirty look for the badly placed joke, but he only smiled. "Don't get me wrong, love; I admire a person who's willing to do whatever's necessary."

He moved a few steps closer, and she glanced at him warily. "You're a smart man, Jack—but I don't entirely trust you."

Suddenly he was so close, she could feel his breath on her cheek, the last traces of rum's burning scent floating down her neck. She blushed, but only slightly. He could not have seen it in the dark.

She gave him a sidelong look as he gestured to them both. "_Peas in a pod_, darling." The hoarse, whispering tone of his voice made her shiver involuntarily.

The rough texture of his palm against her skin was oddly startling, as he turned her head to face him. She was immediately captured by the intense brown of his eyes, and found herself growing lightheaded as he leaned in closer, closer…she could practically taste the sweet alcohol that clung to his lips.

They were not a hair apart when the clap of boots against the deck shook her from her stupor. Jack moved away with the catlike quickness she had seen only a few times before.

"Come with me, Sparrow," James said stiffly, tossing Jack his compass. He had not seen anything. Jack followed the Commodore as he walked away, but not before throwing Elizabeth a meaningful look.

Her breath returned to her in heaving gasps, and she clutched the ship's railing with both hands to steady herself. _What's gotten into you? _She thought, furious at herself for her reaction. _You've been through too much to be frightened by a foolish, half-mad pirate—_

She grimaced as a clear, quiet voice echoed in the corners of her mind. _And his kiss._

Elizabeth stared, blank-faced into the water below, reflecting back on the island, her earlier encounters with Jack…trying to find some starting point of her accursed, unspoken—

_Attraction?_

There was no use denying it now.

God, but she felt like just a girl around him, though she would never show it. The darker side of him that he had briefly revealed to her on the island had disturbed and egotistically deflated her. She had been allowed a glimpse of the wisdom and grief he clung to, deep under his calloused bandit's skin.

She had been reduced to whimpering child, in those few moments of revelation—and yet she had grown, become, somehow, more a woman at the same time.

Jack Sparrow instigated within her things she had never thought, never believed, never felt. She could no longer refute that her durable confidence was buckling under his searching gaze and questions disguised as banal compliments; questions that made her wonder just what she was fighting for.

Besides Will Turner.

_Will Turner…_

Despite the strange web of fascination Jack had caught her in, the thought of Will still made her heart pound painfully. The young boy she had rescued eight years before would always be her one true love, no matter _whom_ she married or found attractive. She was wholly convinced that they were soulmates, if such a thing existed, and she would never give her heart to any other—her hand, perhaps, but not if she could help it.

Yes, Will was for whom she fought, albeit Jack had a deeper understand of her than the young blacksmith ever would.

Silently, she thanked heaven she did not sense question in herself on this.

۞

The air in the jail was dry, hot, and thick with dust. Her mouth and throat felt like sandpaper as soon as she opened her mouth, making her voice grate unpleasantly.

"They're hanging you tomorrow."

"Yes, so I've heard."

Anger bubbled deep in her stomach at his composed calm. She observed him icily through the bars of his cell, trying desperately to think of something severe and biting to say.

"Don't you _care_ at all?" She asked precariously, her emotions taking over her desire to insult him.

He leaned nonchalantly back against the wall, his face hidden in shadow as he tilted his tricorne hat over his eyes. "People've been trying to hang me all my life, love. It isn't anything new."

"You are _too_ _full_ of yourself to realize that, this time, _no one is going to save you_." She turned away to hide the wet sheen of her eyes.

"Did you ever think I might not _care_, Miss Swann?" He lifted the front of his hat to eye her coolly.

With a frustrated groan, she whirled around and fell to her knees, grabbing the bars that held Jack in his prison. "But you _saved_ a good man! And your ship, she's out there, _waiting for you!_ How can you just abandon life when you've finally received all that you begged, stolen—_killed_ for?" Her brow shone with perspiration, and her cloak had turned an indeterminable shade of brown from the dirt on the floor. "You fool," she growled through clenched teeth. "You bloody _fool_."

There was no strict naval officer or prying guard to interrupt Jack this time, as he seized her lips in a vigorous kiss. She reached into the cell and grabbed him by the ears, forcing his face closer until both their cheeks were pressed against the rusty bars. Neither cared.

After a time, Elizabeth detected the bitter tang of blood in her mouth, and she released him. He pulled away, a faint smile tugging at his lips.

She was absolutely livid.

"Goodbye, Mr. Sparrow. I will see you at your execution."

The jail door shut with a bang behind her.

۞

Elizabeth was in heaven—no, not heaven. Heaven could not be so overwhelmingly sweet. She had been whisked away to the Garden of Eden, and lounged in its most lavish bed of flowers. Will breathed in, out, in, beside her. His arm was sturdy and comforting as she clung to it. She was acutely aware of all her senses, the light brush of shuffling feet against stone, the bitter taste of the sea air, each thread in Commodore Norrington's uniform…

The startled, frightened expression that she had seen him with only once before: when she had accepted his proposal. Now that she was rejecting it, his reaction was the same. Absently she wondered how he could look so miserable, when she was rejoicing from the tip of every finger down to her toes.

"So this is where your heart truly lies, then?"

Will was hers, at last—

"It is."

At last, at last, at last… 

She could feel the very depth of Will's adoration radiating from him, and when their gazes locked, his heart was in his eyes. It told her all she had ever wanted to know.

Somewhere far away, Jack was speaking—probably irritating and offending everyone he could in the shortest amount of time manageable.

"Elizabeth."

_Elizabeth. _The name was vaguely familiar. She turned, and again her senses were sharp as a needle. Jack's dark, mysterious stare was focused on her, full-blown. It was like a sudden blast of wind.

He hesitated for a moment, and she thought she saw genuine despair cross his features. A second later it was gone, and the mocking tone in his voice when he spoke dispelled all thoughts in her head that it might have been real.

"It would never have worked between us, darling." Pause. "I'm sorry." His gaze dropped, and he stepped away. She could not take her eyes off him.

Just before he toppled backwards over the wall of the battlement, she reached forward instinctively. Her fingers closed in around air, and Jack vanished.

She ran, everyone else just behind her, to peer over the side of the fort. Her lungs expanded painfully in the confines of her chest as his head bobbed to the surface, and she was filled a sudden desire to scream.

Her fingernails dug into Will's flesh.

Her insides raged.

White sails seemed to appear out of nowhere, and she watched Jack's miniscule form swim away from her, towards his home. She had won her love; he had won his.

"Mister Turner." Will slipped out of her grasp, and she reached blindly for his hand. He turned back, and she stared at him with lost eyes.

"I will accept the consequences of my actions," he told her firmly.

_I only pray I can accept the consequences of _mine

She released his hand.

۞

"It's all a matter of _concentrating_, really, love," a husky voice murmured in Elizabeth's ear. She swatted irritably at said appendage, smiling as her carefully placed steps went awry.

"How can I _concentrate_ on something when things keep mo—_whoa_…" She stumbled as one leg crossed over the other, giggling aberrantly. Jack's arm slipped around her waist and pressed her quickly to his side, to keep her from falling. When she regained her footing, it stayed casually slung about her hips.

Even in her drunken state, she noticed his skin burning through her shirt. She knew exactly what was happening, despite her heavy inebriation, and she told herself it was the alcohol that stopped her from pushing him away.

She was lying to herself far too much these days.

It was the fact that Will had gone and left on that six-month voyage to Bristol and Africa, thanks to his new designation in the Royal Navy. It was that when he had left, they had been hoping she was pregnant. It was that, only a week after he left, she realized she hadn't been pregnant at all. And it was the fact that Jack had shown up a month later, and had treated her as she had been inwardly screaming to be treated—as an equal.

To Will she had always been his precious, delicate, ladylike Elizabeth, despite what he had seen her live through. Jack let—no, _expected_ her to be more than that. He wouldn't have come to her door otherwise; he had known perfectly well that Will was gone.

"Stop, stop—this is my house, this one here," she said eagerly, gesturing unsteadily to it. In the dark, the windows looked more shadowed and empty than ever—because it was empty. There was no one inside waiting for her.

"Elizabeth." She turned around, and nearly toppled backwards to find Jack directly behind her. Instead, his arm pulled her forwards, until the entire front sides of their bodies were pushed together.

For a moment, the only sound was their harsh breathing, a shaky rhythm of _inhale_, _exhale_, among the deserted back streets of calm, obedient Port Royal. The static that passed in their gaze sparked with reality; Elizabeth was _Will's_ wife, the one woman Jack could never touch, and the only one he wanted to.

Then she leaned forward, her eyes never leaving his, and grazed her lips against his. "Come inside," she whispered throatily, her breath passing out of her mouth and floating into his.

They staggered in, wound around each other, and suddenly they were kissing as they climbed the stairs, mouths refusing to part as they tripped and missed steps and finally scrambled through the door into Elizabeth and Will's bedroom. Up 'till then, everything had been rushed, their hands moving has fast as their hearts. Now, it abruptly stopped.

The ravaging kiss ended, the hands eased away, and they stepped back, staring at each other.

Elizabeth looked down first. "I'm sorry," she said brokenly, so quiet someone at the doorway wouldn't have heard her.

Jack closed his eyes, a heavy breath collapsing his shoulders. "No—I shouldn't have taken advantage…" His mouth shut uncertainly.

"You should go," Elizabeth agreed, in the same shattered tone. She closed her eyes as her chest convulsed with silent sobs. When she opened them again, he was gone. Easing herself onto the bed, she put her head in her hands and wept.

Tears poured down her cheeks seemingly without end, her head pounding as her entire frame was wracked with tension, crumpling and rebuilding itself, over and over.

And all of a sudden her tears were being kissed away, and her face was turned up towards heaven as though she had been sent a divine gift. She reached up and wound her arms around its neck, smiling and crying and frightened simultaneously.

"I'm sorry," Jack moaned between kisses, as they spread properly onto the bed. "_Elizabeth_…"

They made love—a sort of love that only happens once—and when the morning came they both remembered that Will was gone. They could make love—the kind that only happens once—every day for another five months.

And then they would either live or die.

۞

_**Fin**_

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End file.
